David Cave’s Tribute to

St. Lucian Poet,

Kendel Hippolyte

By David Cave

Sunday, July 29th, 2012

My first encounter with St. Lucian poet playwright and director, Kendell Hippolyte came without any fanfare or announcement. It was at St. Mary’s College, St. Lucia, during my Common Entrance examination, way back in March, 1984. I was an eleven-year old primary school child, momentarily under his authority, as he filled in for the official proctor who had to leave unexpectedly.

Kendel Hippolyte by Jens Olaf Koch

Hippolyte, through his attire and mannerism was striking a strange balance.  He was different, eccentric, but not intimidating.  At this time I did not know this person from Adam.  A few children in the room snickered at Hippolyte’s bohemian aesthetic.  Hippolyte then uttered one phrase in a deep voice, “I see that you are getting quite noisy”.  The tenor of his voice, coupled with the resonance of the classroom and the damp early morning air seemed to have a profound effect on everyone in his presence.  Quiet reigned from that point on.  Hippolyte left as quietly as he came in, and the designated invigilator, whom I don’t have the faintest recollection of, resumed his/her duty for the rest of the day.

A few months later, in September 1984, I became a student of St. Mary’s and realised that this strange person I had seen in the examination room was Mr. Kendel Hippolyte, a member of the school’s teaching staff.  I had to refer to him now as ‘Sir’, and for many years henceforth as he served as my English teacher, until he transferred, circa 1992, to the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College.

Throughout my five years as a student of St. Mary’s College in St. Lucia, there was always this intangible tension in the air.  It was not caused by anything bad or ominous, but rather, by the clear fact that this was the educational institution produced the two individuals who blessed St. Lucia with the most amazing statistic: the greatest number of Nobel Laureates per capita in the entire world: Derek Walcott and the late Sir Arthur Lewis.

As a young adolescent, the greatness of these individuals and their accomplishments weighed heavily upon me.  Moreover, the school’s administration drilled it into your head from early on that this school had produced some of the best that St. Lucia had to offer, and you, the current “College Boy” better not ruin that trend.  I recall many assemblies where the Headmaster and other teachers spoke at length of the magnitude of Derek Walcott’s accomplishments as a poet and a playwright, long before the award of his Nobel Prize in 1992.

It was against this backdrop of Walcott’s impact on the literature of the Caribbean and World, that Hippolyte moulded our young minds.  I specifically recall one assembly when I was still in Form One, where Hippolyte introduced us to Dub Poetry.  Although Kendel was a respectable poet in his own right back then, as a teacher he was completely selfless, imparting the work of other great West Indian poets with opulent animation and zeal, which reinforced an emotional attachment to the inanimate words written on paper.

As Hippolyte moved on from St. Mary’s to the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, I, along with many of my colleagues, followed his dramatic pursuits throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Hippolyte, along with his wife, Jane King set up the Lighthouse Theatre where several plays and skits would be acted out under a makeshift wooden structure where actors had to project their voices, sans microphone, over the constant crashing of waves on the nearby seashore.

Fast forward to 1997, October to be more precise, and Hippolyte’s Birthright is launched on an international scale through Peepal Tree Press, a publisher based in Leeds, England.  As a former student of this poet, I felt proud, elated and extremely privileged as a result of this development.  Around this time I was also fortunate to attend the official launching of this book in St. Lucia.  The function took place in the Castries Central Library where I finally got the chance to witness Hippolyte breathe life into words that he had penned.  It was breathtaking and exciting. Indeed, at the time of its launching, I saw Birthright as the justification for Hippolyte that was long overdue.  It was the collection of poems that I knew had existed since the 1980s , along with more of his recent work.  Finally, I could listen to my former English teacher recite poetry, this time not just to a class, but to a public audience.  Poems from the Birthright collection, such as “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes” and “Systematic Hegemony” generally illustrate the current malaise of our colonial legacy and gross inequalities that have been nourished by excessive Capitalism.  However, Hippolyte also went on to recite other poems such as “The Muse’s Complaint” which demanded a musical lilt in order for this work to make complete sense.

As a reporter, I interviewed Hippolyte in December 1997 at his home, in Pavee Road, which overlooked Castries.  I remember the drive there, because at that time he usually travelled home via maxi, or minibus, as they call it in St. Lucia.  The road was incredibly narrow and steep, with corners that would make my geometry set envious.  We then settled down in his veranda for the interview.  Actually, it was me sitting in a chair and Kendel cocked up on the banister.  I tried to initiate the conversation by asking him about the release of Birthright.  I started by something like, “So Kendel, now that you have been published by an international publisher and recognised throughout the world….”.  At this point Hippolyte quickly interjected, “Really…Internationally recognised…Really?” He burst out laughing.

After the laughter subsided, for Kendel’s broad smile and laughter were infectious and I was laughing too, I realised the magnitude and depth of the joke.  Like Ghetto Love that Hippolyte had taught me so many years before; situations could be incredibly funny and gravely serious at the same time.  Hippolyte’s impromptu reaction was a bitter-sweet reminder that a career in the Arts is difficult.  Despite this milestone of getting Birthright published in the UK, the financial floodgates did not suddenly burst open and international recognition, the kind that Derek Walcott has received, still does not come easily for any other up and coming St. Lucian or Caribbean writer.   Birthright was a brilliant accomplishment for Hippolyte and St. Lucian Literature, but more work still needed to be done.

For the pursuance of work beyond Birthright, I noted in my interview at the end of 1997 that the UK Publisher, Peepal Tree Press, made a commendable commitment to deal exclusively with writers from the Caribbean; something unprecedented in the 1990s and still quite rare in the 21^st Century.  Fifteen years later, in 2012, it is wonderful to see that Peepal Tree Press has maintained its loyalty to Caribbean writers and specifically to Kendel Hippolyte with the release of Fault Lines, the latest collection of written work by this poet.  Incidentally, the cover art for this new book was created by Cecil Fevrier, my former Physics teacher whose divergence from Science to Photography to Painting has given me even me another former teacher to be proud of.

Again, getting an advance copy of this work seems to have been an act of remarkable coincidence or divine intervention.  After leaving St. Lucia for Trinidad at the end of 1999, I had virtually lost touch with Kendel Hippolyte.  It just so happened that earlier this year, we got in touch through another poet and Folk Researcher John Robert Lee while I was doing research for the article on St. Lucian Artist, Dunstan St. Omer.

Kendel and I exchanged emails from that point onwards, with me trying desperately to coordinate a meeting with him as he had a copy of Fault Lines to give me.  I finally caught up with Kendel on 28^th April at the Words & Musicfunction at NAPA, where I dodged cameras, stage lights, and other audience members to meet Kendel.  His Afro had now become a series of dreadlocks and the long beard is now mostly grey, but the warm, radiant smile and piercing eyes seem to have defied the ravages of time.   I was bursting with pride and could not contain my enthusiasm.  I guess this was the same feeling I had when I met with the late Pat Bishop.

To say that Fault Lines is another brilliant collection of poetry, pursuant to Birthright would be overly simplistic. Fault Lines ought to be read and experienced as a separate work, describing St. Lucia in the midst of the early 21^st Century, where perennial problems such as economic subjugation and political deception persist.  The publisher’s introductory sentence entices you into reading Fault Lines by stating, “If you want to feel what it’s like to live on a small island, vulnerable to the wounded thrashings of world capitalism in crisis, an island where livelihoods are destroyed at the flourish of a Brussel bureaucrat’s pen, where Paradise is a tourist cruise ship come to remind you of your neo-colonial status, where global consumerism has poisoned the ambitions of the young into drugs, crime and violence, then the poems in Fault Lines, dread, urgent prophesies of ‘a black sky beyond’, are indispensable guides”.

While I fully agree with this introduction, I am further enlightened by the fact that I walked the streets and personally experienced what Hippolyte writes about in Fault Lines.  In the poem entitled “Paradise”, when Hippolyte says,
     

     Every time this tourist ship name Paradise come dock in the harbour
     you does realize we never going to make it
     Because the tallest building in the town – and is a big-ass bank –
     Still down below the level of the high regard of Grade X Tourists with sunglasses (13)

I envision the cruise ship, either from Carnival Cruise lines, or Celebrity Cruises; the latter is the line whose ships have the big ‘X’ emblazoned on sides the main funnel.  The bank referred is the Bank of St. Lucia, whose opening I personally covered as a St. Lucian Journalist.

Above all, my almost life-long experience with Kendel Hippolyte, is reinforced by Fault Lines.   In addition to my personal experience, Fault Linesemphasises the issue of legacy and continuance.  In Birthright, Hippolyte pays homage to his father in a poem entitled “Mr. Kent”.  Now, in Fault Lines there is a poem entitled “Going” where the poet refers to an incident where his son asks him, “Daddy where are we?” and Kendel Hippolyte, realises that, “In the intuitive logic of a child, where you are going tells you where you are (8)”.

Fault Lines should not be interpreted as a collection of doom and gloom poetry.  Rather, its poetry is focused on the harsh reality of what small, island states like St. Lucia currently face.  Other poems such as “Reggae Rant” (26), an homage to Kamau Brathwaite, serve as a jolting reminder of the power of poetry and words to help us make sense of our current situation and inspire us to seek a way out.  It is therefore fitting that when I finally located Kendel in the NAPA audience, he quickly dug through his satchel, whipped out a copy of Fault Linesand signed it, “To: David, In the Word, Kendel”.

Indeed, Kendel showed me first hand that there is real power in words.  Words evoke emotions, conjure images, analyse, interrogate, bring back memories, experiences and transport and even return a student to his mentor and friend.  Thank you Mr. Hippolyte, Thank you, Sir!

 

Dave Cave’s new blog Gallo Con Dientes is the original source of this article. Thank you David for sharing this with ARC’s community.

David Cave

David Cave was born in Grenada in 1972. He spent his formative years in St. Lucia before going to Canada where he graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Visual Arts and Spanish. Since then he has also completed an M.Phil at UWI in Cultural Studies and has been a lecturer for numerous years. Cave has contributed articles to The St. Lucia Voice, The Trinidad Express and Caribbean Beat Magazine.

Toronto-based filmmaker,

Frances-Anne Solomon

takes Caribbean culture global

By Holly Bynoe  

August 1st, 2012

 

Rea McNamara from Yonge Street Media for CityTV, writes a revealing portrait on Frances-Anne Solomon the founder and director of CaribbeanTales.

 

For years, veteran Toronto-based filmmaker Frances-Anne Solomon had to justify to Canadian buyers and distributors the niche filled by her independent, non-commercial work, specifically film and television content that mined the Caribbean diasporic experience.

Despite a formidable 20 years in the industry—she has produced and directed films and documentaries for broadcasters like the BBC and Bravo!—Solomon grew frustrated with the arduous process of justifying the marketability of her globally diverse content and took matters into her own hands. So she formed CaribbeanTales, a nonprofit that produces multimedia products drawn from stories that come out of the Caribbean diaspora.

Frances-Anne Solomon. YONGESTREETMEDIA/Tanja-Tiziana Burdi.

 

But she didn’t just stop there. While continuing to be a prolific filmmaker, Solomon has flexed her entrepreneurial spirit in expanding CaribbeanTales as a group of Canadian companies which now include a film festival group that runs each year in Barbados and Toronto, as well as a full-service marketing and distribution company. In doing so, she’s managed to transcend her struggles to support diverse emerging filmmakers as well as the Caribbean’s fledging film industry.

“It’s not like my role in life is to create opportunities for filmmakers,” she says. “But there is a need for that to exist and I am just doing what I think is needed to benefit everyone, including myself.”

So what drives Solomon to create these opportunities? Born in England to Trinidadian parents, she’s the granddaughter of one of the key political architects of the country’s independence. As a young woman, she struggled to find a creative profession whilst being raised middle class by her father in Trinidad’s Port-of-Spain.

“There are two schools you went to if you were middle class: the [Catholic] Convent and the Anglican equivalent, Bishops,” she says. “I went to a very academic-driven girls school. It was a very crushing system of academics. You had to come first in the island, get into university and get a career, which was all very fantastic, but it was very crippling in terms of personal development or mental health or creative development. Being an artist wasn’t an option.”

In Toronto, it was. She moved to live with her mother, and decided to study theatre at the University of Toronto. Her teachers included Stephen Martineau, Factory Theatre founder Ken Gass and the late Governor General Award-winning poet Jay Macpherson.

Martineau was the head of the drama program, and could often be found in his upstairs office wearing Indian robes, sitting on the floor with burning incense. The program he shaped—”It was very California, very human development, a mixture of experimental and improv theatre with a combination of gestalt and therapy”—was formative for Solomon. (Other alumni include director Daniel Brooks and the late Tracey Wright.)

“Stephen was all about going inside yourself and finding the authentic voice,” she explains. “So all my work is based on that process. I’ve always developed through starting with research into the lived experiences of the characters.”

Soon after graduating, Solomon moved to Great Britain where she was attracted to the late 1980s/early 1990s multicultural movements that fuelled new British black filmmakers. As a TV drama producer and executive producer, Solomon executed featured film projects like the BBC Film production Peggy Su! (1998), a 1960s comedy set in Liverpool’s Chinese community and the semi-autobiographical Trinidad-set Channel 4 production What My Mother Told Me (1995) that was praised by the Guardian as a “haunting and memorable film.”

Frustrated by racism and the difficulties she encountered in securing government funding, she moved back to Canada in the late 1990s and founded her own film and television company Leda Serene Films. Solomon made her mark here developing compelling Caribbean-Canadian film and television. She was the co-creator, producer and director of Canada’s first multicultural sitcom, Lord Have Mercy! and in 2008 directed the full-length feature A Winter Tale, which dealt with Toronto’s difficult multicultural realities. Tale was a three-year process that utilized the collaborative strategies she learnt at U of T under Martineau.

CaribbeanTales, a nonprofit targeting the educational market, was born out of Solomon’s commitment to telling stories that came from the Canadian-Caribbean experience. Some of the company’s products included series like Literature Alive, a 20-part documentary series for Bravo! on intergenerational Canadian-Caribbean authors that ranged from Jamaican icon “Miss Lou” to dub poet d’bi.young. Solomon embraced online multimedia content back when uploading videos to YouTube wasn’t yet the norm.

“Right from the beginning when the Internet came on stream, I thought ‘Wow!’” she says. “The last 20 years I have been trying to find a platform for my non-commercial work—the work that I do—and here’s this thing that cost nothing and I can do myself, and no one from the Caribbean was doing it. So I wanted to take advantage of it to market and promote and provide a platform for Caribbean content that didn’t exist in Canada at that time.”

Producing the five audio books and five radio shows that were part of Literature Alive, Solomon grew frustrated by the bureaucracy she encountered with government arts funding where she found “this attitude constantly of anything that is diverse treated as a charity handout.” But she was encouraged with all the content she had produced through CaribbeanTales and decided to present a CaribbeanTales Film Festival in partnership with the NFB during Caribana weekend in 2006. “Needless to say, nobody came, because people were jumping in the streets.”

 

David Green , President BFVA, Frances-Anne Solomon, CEO CaribbeanTales Worldwide, and Dr Keith Nurse, Director of the Shridath Ramphal Center at UWI

 

But the festival has continued, thanks to the support of the Caribbean-Canadian film community and because Solomon was convinced that it provided a solution to the exhibition and distribution problems she has faced.

“When you make independent, non-commercial films that have a niche audience, the problem is you make the films and they aren’t distributed, so no one sees them,” she says. “So when I had this festival for four days at basically a free cinema, I thought, ‘Wow, if you get a cinema and show the films, people will see them.’ The problems of exhibition and distribution can be resolved by having a film festival, and screening not just my films, but everyone in this niche.”

In taking the festival outside Toronto, Solomon drew on connections she had made with Caribbean film industry players in the 20 years she’d spent regularly shooting films in the region. In 2007, the Trinidad and Tobago film retrospective honouring the British-Trinidadian filmmaker Horace Ove received support from the country’s consulate. Over the next few years, partners have included the Jamaican consulate and the University of Toronto. These consulate partnerships, in particular, paid off. In 2010, the festival’s symposium programming and marketplace activities were launched for the first time in Barbados.

The symposium has provided a necessary forum to discuss the issues that affected the region’s film industry: audience development (many of the islands are very separate, and their own individual audience reach is quite small) and the ways regional and diasporic film and television need to be branded in order to have global reach. The effort was a rediscovery of the authentic voice, privileging the lived experience. Suddenly, those struggles in Great Britain and Toronto had a greater purpose—to be shared with others who needed to overcome similar hurdles.

“One of the most illuminating things that first year were two women [who came] from the South African Broadcasting Corporation,” recalls Solomon. “[They] talked specifically about how the industry in South Africa transformed from one that was built on the needs of a white minority to [becoming] an Africentric industry that served a huge and diverse population.”

Indeed, there are obvious parallels to South Africa with the Caribbean in the still lingering impact of colonialism. In the Caribbean, one can also argue that American imperialism still manifests itself, as local broadcasters question buying local content “when they can buy 150 episodes of CSI for $50 a piece,” says Solomon.

If Solomon learned anything in convincing Vision TV to recognize the diverse television viewers with Lord Have Mercy!, it was how to address the marginalized, so-called “non-white” cultural group as a global audience niche.

“I think a lot of us are recognizing that we have power and we don’t have to sit around complaining,” she says. “So there is an opportunity to build something that is our own, even though it’s a bit late. But it’s still there and we can do it just the way they did it in South Africa, as those countries recognize the power of the media to transform.”

That’s meant channeling her work into a greater “Caribbean” brand.

“By saying that [CaribbeanTales Film Festival] is a Caribbean-wide and Caribbean diaspora festival, it immediately says that our audience is everybody in and out of the Caribbean that is of Caribbean heritage that are interested in the Caribbean,” she says. “That is huge. Then we can talk about audience building and sustainability based on that size of audience.”

After the first Barbados festival, CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CWTD) was formed, the first and only company dedicated to the marketing and sales of Caribbean-themed content in and out of the Caribbean. It’s committed to take a leadership role in developing the region’s fledging film industry by acquiring, marketing, selling and delivering that content worldwide.

In two years, CWTD has acquired a catalogue of more than a hundred films, many that have screened at the festival. CWTD launched internationally at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) with the CaribbeanTales Toronto Incubator, a market incubator program aiming to raise the profile of Caribbean producers and help them gain entry into the international market. (The incubator also runs in Barbados during the CaribbeanTales Film Festival there.)

The Toronto Incubator is a three-day intensive program during TIFF. Participating filmmakers are given the support and access to sell their film to the buyers, distributors and agents that flock the festival. In two years, the calibre of talent that has emerged is impressive and the partnership with TIFF continues to develop. Earlier this year, CaribbeanTales co-presented during TIFF’s Black History Month, screening the Canadian premiere of the Jamaican film Better Mus’ Come. When introducing the film, TIFF’s artistic director Cameron Bailey singled Solomon out as a “motivating force in the Caribbean film world, someone who is bringing people together.”

Despite the tireless work Solomon does in maintaining Toronto as a base for her companies whilst pursuing global business opportunities, she has continued her own filmmaking, with at least six projects currently in development and two currently in production. She recently completed a one-hour doc called Human Traffic : Past and Present. Still, she finds that creating opportunities for others is another kind of creative work.

“There’s a real ego-driven mentality in the film industry that it’s all about ego, stars and Hollywood. And that gets people nowhere,” she says. “I really think you need to build that understanding among people that the more you give to [this] larger picture, the more everyone gets out of it.”

 

Original Post from CityTV.

South African Police

Open Fire On Striking Miners

August 17, 2012

Posted by: Bongani Kona

Waning: Graphic Video.

On Thursday night, in one of the worst tragedies to hit post-apartheid South Africa, police shot and killed 34 striking mineworkers and injured 78. Three-thousand rock drill operators staging a wildcat pay strike, armed with machetes and sticks, clashed with police at a platinum mine – Lonmin’s Marikana plant, the third-largest in the world - outside Rustenburg, 100 km northwest of Johannesburg. According to reports, it is unclear who fired the first shot. National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega said earlier today “this is no time blaming; this is no time for finger-pointing. It is time for us to mourn.” You can follow the story here and here.

__________________________

Lonmin crisis:

A tinderbox of discontent

Violence has become the modus operandi of such strikes in South Africa and Lonmin is no exception, writes Kwanele Sosibo.

17 AUG 2012 - KWANELE SOSIBO

It was only late on Wednesday afternoon, with the sun disappearing behind the koppie where about 3 000 striking Lonmin workers had set up camp that any telling action transpired.

A media circus had been perched all day on the open veld to the west of the Nkanini informal settlement, where some of the workers live in appalling conditions. The journalists, right behind the 30 vehicle police laager arranged about 150m from the miners, had their eyes trained on the "action" while their cars faced the opposite direction, ready for flight should the need arise.

Wednesday, however, presented no violence in the week-long strike on one of Lonmin's three mining operations. With disarmament negotiations collapsing earlier in the day and the miners now expressing their defiance through spirited song, the air was that of a colonial era military standoff – guns versus spears – and yet one could not shake the feeling that the day was being wasted by empty posturing on both sides.

Then, at about 5.30pm, a convoy of cars bearing National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) president Senzeni Zokwana arrived and parked near the centre of the police laager. Zokwana and some miners were whisked into an armoured police vehicle and driven a hundred or so metres to address his "constituency" from within the Nyala. After pleading with the unreceptive workers to return to work and refusing to step out of the Nyala, Zokwana hurriedly left the scene, tail firmly tucked between his legs.

The arrival of rival Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) president Joseph Mathunjwa, merely minutes later, was a contrasting affair. Flanked by two colleagues, Mathunjwa initially refused to go into the Nyala (a point he repeatedly stressed during his sunset address), preferring to make a meal of it by trekking to the assembled crowd on foot.

He was persuaded against the stunt by the police and task-force operatives. While he could have been  in some danger, more importantly, it would have been too obvious a signal of the changing guard at Lonmin, even for the journalists fenced off behind a human barrier of tactical response teams from various policing precincts.

Favourable conditions
Mathunjwa's address was a lesson in crowd control, peppered with slogans and choice phrases signifying allegiance. "You are not germs, you are people just like us," he shouted in imperfect Xhosa via an address system to a gradually warming response. "No one is going to get fired … but I must let you know that police have declared this a security zone."

Mathunjwa said that it was a disgrace that 18 years into democracy, workers were still earning R4 000 a month. He asked workers to trust him to help broker favourable conditions for a return to work, before calling on the workers' leaders to air grievances. Within 45 minutes, with dusk yielding to night, Mathunjwa was kept clear of journalists and zipped away.

Once again, the assembled workers had spoken. Just as at Implats, where the NUM's embarrassment was neutered by Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi, the writing was on the wall for the NUM at Lonmin.

Earlier in the day, workers boasted of how undaunted they were by the police presence. On Tuesday afternoon, five hippos had posted close to the koppie, brandishing tear gas canisters and weapons in front of dancing workers, they said. Clad in brown slacks and a green and black tracksuit jacket, a young, clean-shaven Xhosa-speaking spokesperson who identified himself as Nzuza said: "We didn't run, so they left."

Nzuza said a helicopter, which had been circling around the gathered workers, also lowered its orbit to reveal armed soldiers before flying off. On Wednesday, he told journalists: "The police said they want to give us feedback from management but there's nothing they are coming with. They want to arrest us as leaders so this [strike] can end. We want the employer to come here. [Lonmin CEO] Ian Farmer must come. [Vice-president human capital and external affairs Barnard] Mokwena is just a messenger."

Nzuza told journalists that the men were not assembled under a specific union banner and that the strike might have been started by rock-drill operators, but "all of Lonmin" was represented. His fellow spokesperson, a taller man carrying two spears with a lime green quilt draped around his back claimed Wednesday's negotiations with police broke down because the workers realised that "NUM members were in the hippos, those very same people who killed us" on Saturday. "Which policemen can speak fanakalo?" he asked.

Retaliation campaign
The miners, speaking via peer representation, said they had been congregating on the "mountain" since Sunday after shots were allegedly fired at them on Saturday at the nearby Wonderkop hostel allegedly "by snipers in red National Union of Mineworkers T-shirts", killing two workers.

They have since embarked on a retaliation campaign they say, with casualties including policemen and security guards. A man found lying in crucifixion position on the edge of the koppie on Tuesday with his head split open and stab wounds to the torso, had apparently committed the cardinal sin of "fishing for information". His lifeless body was left on display the entire day as a warning to non strikers.

Police spokesperson Dennis Adriao said: "From the police's side, we want to reach an amicable end to this situation. We need the workers to disarm and disperse. We have spoken to the workers. We have spoken to union leaders, workers and mine management. If there are no results today, we'll be forced to act."

On Thursday evening, the police carried out their threat, killing several workers in addition to the 10 casualties earlier in week, which included two policemen.

The unprotected strike began late last week, with about 3000 rock-drill operators congregating on Friday and allegedly intimidating employees. They have since set their salary demands at R12 500 a month, for the lowest of workers, which includes rock-drill operators and their assistants.

Bargaining units
As was the case at Implats in February, a public blame game ensued between the NUM and Amcu. Mathunjwa, squeezing in a final word during an SAFM broadcast on Wednesday morning, told general secretary of the NUM, Frans Baleni: "Don't resort to violence when you lose members. Freedom of association. In 1994 we voted for that freedom." The NUM, meanwhile, has maintained that the violence is part of an intimidation strategy. "Eastern Platinum is ready to work," Baleni said earlier in the programme. "I met workers yesterday, 5 000 of them … Let all the killers be arrested, even if they are NUM members."

Most of the striking workers return to Wonderkop hostel after their daily meetings at the koppie. At a press conference at Lonmin a day earlier, Baleni said: "As our members are alleging, all violence is emanating from this desperately small union. All arrests emanate from this particular union. Confirmation of that will soon come."

Lonmin's Mokwena said that Amcu had 21% membership across the bargaining units. However, this looks likely to rise as the NUM has continued to bleed members among mineworkers. Trying to find workers openly aligned to the NUM is a tall order at Wonderkop due to disaffection and intimidation.

Lonmin stated on Thursday afternoon: "The striking rock-drill operators remain armed and away from work. This is illegal under the Labour Relations Act. Consequently, and in keeping with the terms of a court order granted to Lonmin on August 11 2012, the illegal strikers have today [Thursday August 16] been issued with a final ultimatum to return to work by their next shift on Friday August 17 or face dismissal… As a result of the disruption, Lonmin has so far lost six days of mined production, representing approximately 300 000 tons of ore, or 15 000 Platinum-equivalent ounces."

Crispen Chinguno, a PhD candidate at the Wits school of social science who spent the past year studying patterns of violence in platinum mines in the Rustenburg area, said violence had become routine in strikes in the region.

"Workers feel that it adds both positive and negative value," he said. "At Implats, where workers were also demanding a salary adjustment outside of a bargaining agreement (R9 000), they ended up getting more than R8 000. The strike was illegal, some were dismissed, but most of them got their jobs back. From that perspective, the workers feel the use of violence is working for them. The negative aspects are some job losses, injuries and death." Chinguno believes that as is already happening, the pattern could replicate in other mines. Deaths have recently occurred at Aquarius Platinum's Kroondal mine.

The high level of shop-floor disgruntlement with established unions like the NUM opens the door for other unions who promise workers better quality representation. This is often described, as it is by the NUM, for example, as violent, opportunistic and unethical recruitment.

Chinguno, whose research took him to Aquarius, Implats, Lonmin and Anglo Platinum believes that a further explanation for the violence is the fact that workers have become more fragmented than before. Some are residing in informal settlements outside of the mines, some still live in hostels and some black workers occupy more skilled positions than others. Violence is used as a way of enforcing solidarity.

Chinguno said Amcu's position was that of the NUM 30 years ago, an upstart union stepping in to fill a void of disgruntlement. While Amcu cannot be directly linked to the violence, he said interviews with high-level Amcu leaders revealed that they understood violence as the workers' strategy of entrenching a majority.

>via: http://mg.co.za/article/2012-08-17-00-lonmin-crisis-a-tinderbox-of-discontent

MARCUS GARVEY

Marcus Garvey was born in St Ann's Bay, Jamaica on 17 August 1887, the youngest of 11 children. He inherited a keen interest in books from his father, a mason and made full use of the extensive family library. At the age of 14 he left school and became a printer's apprentice where he led a strike for higher wages. From 1910 to 1912, Garvey travelled in South and Central America and also visited London.

He returned to Jamaica in 1914 and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). In 1916, Garvey moved to Harlem in New York where UNIA thrived. By now a formidable public speaker, Garvey spoke across America. He urged African-Americans to be proud of their race and return to Africa, their ancestral homeland and attracted thousands of supporters.

To facilitate the return to Africa that he advocated, in 1919 Garvey founded the Black Star Line, to provide transportation to Africa, and the Negro Factories Corporation to encourage black economic independence. Garvey also unsuccessfully tried to persuade the government of Liberia in west Africa to grant land on which black people from America could settle.

In 1922, Garvey was arrested for mail fraud in connection with the sale of stock in the Black Star Line, which had now failed. Although there were irregularities connected to the business, the prosecution was probably politically motivated, as Garvey's activities had attracted considerable government attention. Garvey was sent to prison and later deported to Jamaica. In 1935, he moved permanently to London where he died on 10 June 1940. In 1964, his body was returned to Jamaica where he was declared the country's first national hero.

The Complete Malcolm X: http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

Download artwork

The MsAfropolitan Mixtapes

- vol. 1

MsAfropolitan 

 Courtesy of independent label, Broadcite Music, we are going on an Afropolitan ride from Ghana to South Africa fusing highlife and afrobeat with Detroit House and the edgy beats of underground London. 

The MsAfropolitan mixtapes vol. 1 by T.Roy [Broadcite]

1) Tony Allen – Kindness

2) Revolution – The Journey Continues

3) Sister Pearl – Bang the drum

4) Bollie – You May Kiss Your Bride

5) Rob – Move

6) Aye toro – From Benin to Belize

7) Nneka – Africans

8 ) Stolen moments

9) Uppers International – Dankasa

10) Apagya Showband – Mummunde

11) Malik Alston – Badeya

12) Upside down – Fela tribute

13) Joni Haastrup – My People

Released by: Broadcite Music

Release date: Dec 20, 2011

MAYSA LEAK

Hello Soul Tracks Family!! I'm so excited to present to you my 9th solo CD, Motions Of Love! I LOOOOVE THIS RECORD!! It features soul star Dwele and the Living Legend, Mr. Stevie Wonder!

 

I stretched out a little on this album giving you a little dance, disco, rap, pop and even country music! I also took my turn as a producer and teamed up with great producers Chris "BIG DOG" Davis and Angela Johnson and new producers Charles Baldwin Damon Bennett!! I PROMISE you will love MOTIONS OF LOVE too!!

Wishing you peace and blessings,

Maysa

<<

Web Sites: 

 
Official Web Site

 
Listen to interview at SoulTalk

Biography

Baltimore native Maysa Leak has gained fiercely loyal following over the past decade as one of the great modern soul/jazz vocalists, and her work has been appreciated by millions of others who simply don't know her name.  Compared by some to Sade, she is really a unique vocalist who combines a keen sense of jazz phrasing with a gorgeous, deep, soulful voice similar to Lalah Hathaway.

 

Maysa's first major break occurred in the late 80s, following her graduation from Morgan State University, when she became part of Stevie Wonder's backing group, Wonderlove, and performed on the Jungle Fever soundtrack.  Her deep, smoky voice came to the attention of Incognito leader Jean-Paul "Bluey" Maunick, who made her the group's lead singer in the early 90s.  Her performances on the group's Positivity and Beneath the Surface were outstanding, as she breathed sultry life into great tunes such as "Deep Water" and "Shade of Blue" and dueted with Mark Anthoni on the group's biggest international hit, "Still a Friend of Mine."

Alternating between London (Incognito's home) and Baltimore, Maysa recorded her eponymous solo debut in 1995 with Bluey's help and scored a minor hit with "What About Our Love."  Her second album, All My Life became a hit on the Contemporary Jazz charts in 2000 and she scored even bigger internationally two years later with her Rex Rideout-produced Out of the Blue, which was listed by many Soul and Jazz magazines as among that year's best albums.  While her beautiful voice was clearly spotlighted on all of her solo discs, she also showed a knack for choosing solid sophisticated material and the right producers and and arrangers to make all of her albums memorable.  Maysa rejoined Incognito and worked on the group's 2004 album Adventures in Black Sunshine.

Working with producers Rex Rideout (Boney James, Will Downing) and Bluey, in September 2004 Maysa released her fourth solo album, Smooth Sailing.  Not surprisingly, it was another fine outing that balanced her one-of-a-kind voice with tasty jazz arrangements and solid material.  Silkier and sweeter than Incognito's acid jazz recordings, it was aimed right at the heart of smooth jazz radio and boasted solid tunes and playing throughout.  And Maysa was in fine voice, absolutely nailing the Bluey-produced ballad "Soul Child" and the midtempo title cut.  Even more accessible were "One More Chance" and the album closer, "Unexpectedly," a great cut that crossed the smooth jazz line and moved into UAC territory beautifully. 

She followed it a year and a half later with Sweet Classic Soul on the Shanachie label, an album of covers of 70s and 80s soul classics.  It was warmly received and set the stage for a sequel, Feel The Fire, which was released in 2007. The latter won for her a much deserved Female Vocalist of the Yeartrophy at the 2007 SoulTracks Readers' Choice Awards, at which she gave perhaps the most memorable acceptance speech of the evening.

Maysa returned in 2008 with the excellent Metamorphosis, a disc of new music and one of her finest solo performances.  She continues to tour the country, headlining multi-artist jazz shows and also singing in clubs. She followed in early 2010 with the fine album A Woman In Love, which featured both new material and covers of several jazz standards. In November of 2011 she will be issuing what she feels may be her best album to date, Motions of Love.

By Chris Rizik

 

Posted August 17th, 2012 by paulr

__________________________

Journey to Crone

Ongoing until 31st August 2012

Poetry

A book of poems by and about women.

Open to all forms.

We are looking for captivating and insightful poetry that reflects all things maiden, mother and crone. The anthology aims to voice and cherish the vast experiences of womanhood and female wisdom. All subjects, light and dark, welcome.

Multiple submissions are accepted but please see full guidelines before submitting.

Simultaneous submissions are not accepted.

Only send work that is original, previously unpublished, and for which you hold copyright.

We pay £3.00 for poems up to 20 lines and £6.00 for poems up to 40 lines. Payment is made upon publication via PayPal.

Submissions will open on 8th March 2012 to celebrate International Women’s Day and will be accepted on an ongoing basis until late autumn.

The book will launch on International Women’s Day 2013.

Please check here for full submission guidelines.

Re-Opens for Submissions in September:

Kweli Journal

(literary journal for/ by people of color)

Deadline: 1 April 2013

Kweli celebrates cultural kinships and the role of the literary imagination. In this shared space, you will hear the lived experience of people of color. Our many stories. Our shared histories. Our creative play with language. Here our memories are wrapped inside the music of the Muscogee, the blues songs of the South, the clipped patois of the Caribbean. Here in Spanish, Zulu, Tagalog, a useful past is lying down next to an ailing present. Our prose, poetry and visual art are full of vitamins and vernacular. Listen. Grow. Lift.

Kweli is organized under a managing editor and five contributing editors. As a group, we bring a few things to the editorial table: a dynamic sense of world views, challenging opinions, diverse professional backgrounds and a unifying passion for the written word. We promise to bring a unique perspective to the selection process. We invite you to make Kweli Journal your home.

Kweli recently transitioned from a biannual publication to a monthly. We seek high quality literary work that is beautiful and sustaining, profound and powerful.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Kweli Journal accepts online submissions from September 1 through April 1. Submissions received outside this reading period will remain unread.

Recent issues of Kweli have featured the work of Jennine Capó Crucet and Amaud Jamaul Johnson. Upcoming issues of the journal will feature Camille Dungy, Aaron Michael Morales and Neela Vaswani.

Submit your work at any time during our reading period; if a manuscript is not timely for one issue, it will be considered for another.

For prose submissions, submit one (1) short story or one (1) self-contained novel excerpt or creative non-fiction piece of no more than 7,000 words in one single file in doc., rtf, or .pdf format.

For poetry submissions, submit up to three poems totaling no more than 6 pages in one single file in doc., rtf, or .pdf format.

Kweli does not accept previously published work.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as long as they are indicated as such. Authors must immediately notify the editors if said work has been selected for publication in another periodical, either in print or online. Contact editors@kwelijournal.org

Payment is after publication.

All published work will be archived online.

Check here by September for their 2013 issue themes (if any).

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries: editors@kwelijournal.org

For submissions: via submittable

Website: http://kwelijournal.org/

 

Search for Plays

Confronting Racial/ Ethnic Issues:

The 2012 Ruby Lloyd Apsey Award (US)

Deadline: 7 September 2012

Every year, Theatre UAB conducts a search for new and original full-length plays confronting racial or ethnic issues, especially those calling for ethnically diverse and/or multi-racial casting. The Apsey Award consists of a $1000 prize plus a staged reading and audience talk-back at Theatre UAB.

We prefer recyclable hard-copy submissions, but we do accept electronic submissions PROVIDED each submission is a SINGLE FILE containing a brief synopsis of the play and a cover letter giving highlights of the author's theatre experience. Next submission period: June 1st - September 7th, 2012.

The Apsey winner will be a play with intriguing characters, an engrossing plot, a strong sense of the true power of live performance, meaty roles for university-level actors, and a fresh examination of race relations in America with genuinely challenging insights. Produced scripts are welcome, but preference will be given to world premieres.

Each submission must include:

• a brief synopsis of the play

• a cover letter giving highlights of the author's theatre experience

Send all scripts to:

The Ruby Lloyd Apsey Play Search
Theatre UAB ASC 255
1530 3rd Avenue South
Birmingham AL 35294-1263
OR to leeshack@uab.edu

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries/ submissions: leeshack@uab.edu

Website: http://www.uab.edu/theatre